Day 6

        Went to a Star Trek convention today.  Got a picture with Leonard Nimoy.  Been being even shorter with my sentences.  I'm a little emotionally and mentally drained from being in constant talking motion all day.  It's late but I'm going to write this thing.  This one will suck.  This entry should be thrown away.  But it's something I've got to do, regardless.  This is only day 6, we'll see how day 16 goes.  I knew the learning curve would be steep.


            It had started off like a dead skunk in a door closet, but things were finally looking up.  I wasn’t supposed to be back.  Kelli wasn’t supposed to be home.  But, it’s her apartment too since it says so on the lease.

            I have spent a lot of time at the laundromat in the last month.  The smell of fresh detergent always represents a fresh start; the clothes may only remain clean until the next time I have to come in, but it’s cyclical that way.  And besides, when I’m here almost every day I feel productive and fresh.  She’s out there with her new boyfriends at the high end discos stomping around under flashing lights, I’m wandering the streets with my hands in my clean pockets.

            Since my car got towed, I’ve been shopping at the gas station instead of the grocery store.  The bell rings as I open the door, Assad looks up from his paper and half- assedly waves.  I think I knew him from high school.  One way or another, I knew his name.  Could have been the name tag.

             I’ve been smoking again, when I run out of ways to fill my free time there’s no resisting.  Staring at the cellophane and torn label, I am reminded of the stickiness on my teeth, the yellowing property of these white sticks, and of course an impending death.  Still, I can’t get myself to throw away a full pack.  Or a full pack minus one.

            Down this road, there’s a variety of debris spread out in the street.  They could really use some down on their luck, out of work type of fellow to clean the garbage out of the streets.  Walking past the cemetary, I notice an abnormal amount of light spread over it for this time of night.  It spreads from nowhere, like a cloud.  Must be one of those midnight baseball games.

            I kick around a can for a bit, just to be cliched.  It’s worth it, if someone went to the effort of leaving a tin can with the lid still hanging slightly on in the middle of the street in this day and age.  We have wheels on our luggage and still leave cans in the street.

            The wind reminds me that it’s getting late.  Like those specks of dust floating in the air on sick days, the wind only howls like this when you’re out alone.  I mimed walking a dog for a moment, to see how it would change the perspective.

            A pizza delivery guy came racing around the corner, shielded by an expanse of concrete clinging to the curbs like barbed wire.  As if he were on rails, he flew down the block and let off a few loud honks, although his cantekerous brouhaha was louder than the horn.  He stared into my eyes through the window, turning his head to follow me with his gaze as his taxi vanished from view like a raven into a well.

            Slamming the apartment door on accident, I put my gas station haul of Lunchables, milk, frozen burritos, and twizzlers away in a fell swoop across the kitchen floor.  You had to release the door without any real force, otherwise it would slam into something.  Kelli would get mad at me for slamming it, or assume I was mad at her and that was why I was slamming it; we were doomed from the start.

            Sitting down to the Lunchables, I flicked on the late night TV networks.   Never anything good, always episodes of sitcoms I had already seen. Infomercials for detachable cupboards.  Public access.

            Public access.

            They never filmed live on public access.  It was always some guy presenting a movie he didn’t reserve the rights for that was obscure to the point it wouldn’t require royalties.  This time, it was about a werewolf who was wearing a dress.  Sort of a Red Riding Hood gone bad kind of thing.  It ate the kid,  I think.

            There’s some indistinct chatter going on outside of my window.  This was not abormal, and I shouldn’t concern myself with it.  Just those neighbors kids playing their cops and robbers game, or maybe trying to break into cars.  That’s ok, mine’s not out there.

            I could tell Kelli came back by the indentations left by her missing possessions.  It left a trail to her room, where all that was left was an empty birdcage and dying plants.  Leaves were spread out around the floor, an open window rearranged things to the way it liked it.  I shut the door, rolled my eyes, and lit a cigarette.

            I’ll have to wake up and turn in applications on foot.  Nothing sounds more tiring.  The clock on the TV flashed midnight on a loop, and then cut out.  I reclined in my Lazy Boy, waiting it out.  The power surge started in the kitchen and slowly made its way to the lamp, onto the kitchen.  Light reflected from a mirror onto the floor, turning my feet a pale shade of yellow.  The TV was the last thing to cut out, with an unlucky pedestrian reaching toward the camera for help.

            I thought, great, powers out, I was going to sleep in this chair anyway.  Kicking back, I finished the cigarette and put it out in an old beer can.  Now, I don’t have to get up and turn out the lights. 

Seconds later, the sound of powering up took over the building, and first the lamp began a light flicker, followed by the TV.  Rising to my feet, the streetlights cut out.  I thought about sleeping with the TV on, and it didn’t sound like a bad idea.  A little white noise is always a healthy break from the real world. 

Shutting the window and pulling the shades shut, I grabbed an afghan off of the less comfortable couch.  Something about a chair which is appealing every once in awhile.

Totally worthless writing but tell me it's not.  Our brains aren't hard wired for this stuff.  I'll get there though.